Bundy psychologist says he should have been studied, not executed

By

PETER GILLINS

PORTLAND, Ore. -- An Oregon psychologist who spent nearly 100 hours interviewing Ted Bundy said Tuesday the serial killer should have been kept alive as a 'consultant' to help police catch similar murderers.

'There was no one on earth who had a better understanding of this than Ted,' said Art Norman, a Portland forensic psychologist who helped prepare one of Bundy's many death penalty appeals. 'He was an expert. He knew exactly what he was doing.'

Norman said Bundy would have liked to help the FBI or the Green River Task Force in Seattle study the traits of serial killers. 'If he had had that consulting capacity, a lot of lives might have been saved,' the psychologist said. 'Then (Bundy's victims) wouldn't have died for nothing.

'Ted could have given something back to society,' Norman added. 'But he wasn't allowed to. People wanted revenge.'

Bundy was executed Tuesday in the Florida electric chair.

Norman said his long conversations with the killer convinced him that Bundy had committed more than the 28 murders to which he confessed in the days before his death, and even more than the 36 law enforcement officials speculate about. 'They've just scratched the surface,' he said.

Norman said he provided information to authorities in the Philadelphia area about two killings he believed Bundy committed when he was attending Temple University between January and May of 1969. Those crimes would have occurred five years befpre the the first 'Ted' killings in the Seattle area.

Police in Philadelphia and New Jersey were investigating the claim. The New Jersey State Police said Susan Davis, 19, of Camp Hill, Pa., and Elizabeth Perry, also 19, of Excelsior, Minn., disappeared May 30, 1969, near Summers Point, N.J. Their bodies were found three days later. They had been beaten and stabbed to death.

However, New Jersey authorities told the Oregoninan newspaper they had no solid information linking Bundy to the killings.

He said Bundy had confessed many details of his crimes during his sessions with the psychologist, but always withheld the times and names.

'I believe he was telling me the truth,' Norman said. 'It was in first person and it was in graphic detail. But he wouldn't tell me where. That was kind of his ace in the hole. He wasn't going to give it to anybody.'

Norman declined to release specific details of the interviews, but he recalled that Bundy often referred to pornography. 'Pornography was the fuel. He devoured it and it consumed him, along with drugs and alcohol,' he said.

He also said Bundy believed he was consumed by an irresistible impulse, and hated to think he had chosen to do something evil. 'He hated the word 'choose,'' Norman said.

Norman worked for nearly two years for lawyers who were appealing on behalf of Bundy, but parted company with them in 1987 in a disagreement on how the case should proceed.